Genesis 1:1-5, Job 37:6-13, Matthew 5:16, Luke 2:8-14, Psalm 147:8
O God, Creator of all seasons, We thank You for the wonder of winter. As the earth is blanketed with soft snow, Help us to feel the warmth Of Your embrace. As ice coats bare branches, Glittering...
Genesis 15:1-6, Exodus 14:10-14, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 23:, James 2:14-26
There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...
Only faith survives; faith which is not a work, not even a negative work; not an achievement, not even the achievement of humility. . . . Faith is the ground, the new order, the light. . . . Faith is ...
If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...
In the novel The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, there is a poem called the “Riddle of Strider.” One stanza goes like this: All that is gold does not glitter; Not all who wan...
Pastor: The serpent deceitfully says to the woman, “Did God actually say” what you think He said? All: O God, we have heard the deceiver’s words, and we have distrusted your word. We have not deligh...
Several years ago I saw a television show called Caught on Camera . It featured clips of people being secretly filmed doing all manner of horrific things, precisely because they thought they were...
Did you hear about how, after Adam stayed out late a few nights, Eve became suspicious? “You’re running around with another woman— admit it!” she yelled. "What other woman?!” Adam was mystified. ...
Luke 15:11-32, Acts 16:22-26, Genesis 39:41, 1 Peter 4:16, Psalm 34:18, Romans 5:3-5, 2 Corinthians 12:9
I spent a considerable amount of time with a guy I’ll call Martin. As a brand-new follower of Christ, Martin felt guilty for having previously embezzled a lot of money from his employer. After discuss...
2 Kings 5:1-14, Genesis 15:6, Matthew 13:44, Titus 3:5, John 6:29, Romans 5:1-2
In his book The Mystery of Christ , a series of fictionalized pastoral counseling sessions (based on actual events), the Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon shares a number of helpful ways of unde...
Josephine Bakhita’s life is a testament of God’s faithfulness in the darkest circumstances. She was born in Darfur, Sudan, among the Daju people. Her first years were happy, but at age eight she was k...
Faith and pessimism are incompatible. To be sure, we are not starry-eyed idealists; we are down to earth realists. We know well that sin is ingrained in human nature and in human society. We are not e...
Reject Christianity, if you will, out of motives of cynicism; turn away from it because you believe. Reality is malign and punitive; choose a God that is cantankerous, vindictive, or forgetful, or det...
Proverbs 4:23, Genesis 4:3–7, Ezekiel 36:26 , Luke 6:43-45 , Matthew 15:18-19, Psalm 51:10
When the Bible uses the term heart , it means the causal core of your personhood. The heart is your directional system. The heart is your steering wheel. Your behavior isn’t caused by the situati...
John 4:4-26, Genesis 22:1-19, Luke 10:38-42, Mark 10:17-27, Matthew 6:33
The ultimate reason for our misery, however, is that we do not love God supremely. As Augustine so famously put it in prayer, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they fin...
Genesis 3:8-13, Isaiah 6:5-7, Nehemiah 9:1-3, 1 John 1:8-9, Psalm 51:1-4, Luke 18:9-14
In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? From Noah to Abraham Last week, we looked at the story of Noah and how God became angry with the wickedness of the people, but decided ...
There’s a somewhat naïve belief among some that, in general, most people are inherently good. While many Christians may not fully embrace John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity (which I believe is ...
Gracious God, in our desire to achieve success and recognition, we have disregarded honesty and integrity in our speech and actions. Forgive us for our shortcuts, white lies, and dishonesty. Help us b...
Song of Solomon 8:6-7, Hebrews 13:4, Matthew 19:4-6, Genesis 2:18, 21-24
Marriage begins when two people make the clear, unqualified promise to be faithful, each to the other, until the end of their days. That spoken promise makes the difference. A new relationship is init...
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed the public nature of Ash Wednesday. That is to say, what happens when we leave an Ash Wednesday service and there is the sign of the cross, for all who ...
Daniel 6:16-23, Jeremiah 29:4-7, Genesis 39:20-23, Acts 16:25-34, Matthew 5:10-12 , Psalm 23:4
On Christmas Eve in Tehran, house-church pastor Farshid Fatah and his family were awakened to the frightening sounds of the Iranian security police pounding at their door. After the police searched hi...
Genesis 12:1-4, Exodus 13:17-18, Matthew 4:18-22, Psalm 23:, John 16:33
The journey has to feel like night because it leads to the unknown. If Christianity meant mere maintenance, then bewilderment or darkness would spell disaster. But . . . darkness is a condition of the...
If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora...
Genesis 18:10-15, Numbers 13:14, Job 1:42, Matthew 14:22-33, Psalm 73:
It is quite common for Christians to experience doubts from time to time. Unfortunately, doubts about our Christian beliefs are often treated in the same way we would treat a common cold. We wait it o...